Darius N. Couch

Darius Nash Couch (23 July 1822-12 February 1897) was a Union Army Major-General during the American Civil War.

Biography
Darius Nash Couch was born in Putnam County, New York in 1822, and he graduated from West Point in 1846. He went on to serve as a US Army lieutenant during the Mexican-American War, distingushing himself at the Battle of Buena Vista; he later fought in the Third Seminole War. During the 1850s, he also became a naturalist in northern Mexico, discovering Couch's kingbird and Couch's spadefoot toad. When the American Civil War broke out, he was appointed colonel of the 7th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and he was promoted to Brigadier-General in August 1861. He commanded a brigade of the Army of the Potomac before being given divisional command in the VI Corps and fighting in the Peninsula Campaign. On 31 May-1 June 1862, he fought at the Battle of Fair Oaks, and he fought in the Seven Days Battles in June and then at the Battle of Antietam in September and at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December. His division suffered heavy losses at Fredericksburg, and he was made Joseph Hooker's second-in-command at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, commanding a corps. After Hooker became shell-shocked, Couch took command of the army and withdrew to the defensive lines to the north. After quarreling with Hooker, he requested reassignment, and he took command of the Department of the Susquehanna and skirmished with the Army of Northern Virginia's cavalry at Sporting Hill, Pennsylvania in one of the northernmost clashes of the war. In December 1864, he led a division in the Army of the Ohio at the Battle of Franklin and the Battle of Nashville, and he finished his military service in North Carolina in 1865. After the war, he launched a failed gubernatorial bid in Massachusetts, served as president of a West Virginia mining company, and moved to Connecticut in 1871. He died in Norwalk in 1897 at the age of 74.